Nigeria is currently in the process of re-branding her image, the Nigerian government has given the Federal Ministry of Information the task of doing that, and have also empowered the ministry with an initial sum of N600 million ($4 million) to execute the project.

In their traditional civil service wisdom, the Ministry have been going about the implementation of the project (formerly the Nigeria Image project, but now renamed the Heart of Africa project) the best way they can. Till date, one can easily count on his or her fingers what the project coordinators have done so far. A professional branding agency (Alder Consulting) has been engaged, although it is not yet clear what brief the consultancy received, what targets were set and how they actually intend to re-brand Nigeria and make it an investor’s paradise.

The branding consultancy recently published what it called 10 Facts about the Heart of Africa project in Nigeria’s major newspapers; it has also produced an informational CD about the project, a logo has also been designed.


The logo of the Heart of Africa project



The 10 Facts publication

Obviously, the advertisement about Nigeria currently showing on CNN is part of the project implementation; it does not seem however that the branding consultancy in question, owned by Leke Adler has anything to do with the advertisement in question. Why do I think so? Well, my experience in the Nigerian advertising industry tells me that Alder Consulting can do much better, unless they have succumbed to a higher authority and have endorsed the scheduling of the embarrassing ads in CNN, if that is the case, then the agency is seriously putting the reputation it has built for itself in danger.


CD ROM of the Heart of Africa project.


Brochure of the Heart of Africa project

I have read quite a few uncomplimentary things about the CNN advertisements as well; the Nigerian Guardian newspaper editorial of Sunday, September 11, 2005 qualified it as a theatrical portrayal of Nigeria, a gaudy advert and a cacophony of incongruence.

Several other writers and observers have also written about the heartbeat advertisements which are fast turning into a debacle and farce for Nigeria on CNN, Eziuche Ubani in his This Day opinion column of August 18th 2005 asks the question Who did this to Nigeria?, he quotes a presidency source to state that the CNN advertisements are costing Nigeria about N130 million ($1 million). Any surprise? Not really, the only surprise will be if there will be anything left of the N600 million Heart of Africa project budget before the end of the year. The big question remains what Nigeria and Nigerians have gained so far, from the CNN media campaign. Not minding what the Federal Ministry of Information will claim and the figures/statistics they will eventually cook up to justify the money spent so far, Nigeria is not any different from what it is before the campaign started, our image is also not any whiter, cleaner or better from the embarrassing CNN advertisements. We haven’t yet put our house in order, so as to leverage on any mileage we may gain from a well orchestrated international media campaign.

Have the ad minds in Alder Consulting compromised themselves in all these? Well, that will depend on if they had solely written the script which President Olusegun Obasanjo acted out in the CNN advertisements, the gist however is that the agency’s original concept and script was doctored by those ‘gatekeepers’ at Aso Rock, the boot lickers who thought they were doing the president and Nigerians a favour by suggesting that he appeared in the commercials, in the mould of a GQ model to issue a most unwelcome message in his usual tone of voice and thick accent, with the president’s ‘welcome to Nigeria’ testimonial, you now begin to wonder where the Agbani Daregos, Oluchi Onweagbas, Femi Okes, Akeem Olajuwons, Jay-Jay Okochas, Philip Emeagwalis, Shirley Basseys, Sophie Okonedos, Sade Adus and the Emeka Okafors are, all successful Nigerians with strong international and recognisable faces. Has the Federal Ministry of Information and Alder Consulting tried reaching out to these people to enlist them as they originally proposed? We don’t know.

What has Hurricane Katrina got to do with Nigeria’s image? A lot I will say, especially if you consider that economic diplomacy has been the main focus of
President Obasanjo’s government. How did they not think of getting in on the donors list right from the beginning? What are the names of poor countries like Latvia, Cuba, Honduras etc doing on the list when that of the self-styled giant and heartbeat of Africa (Nigeria) is not on the list, where are the proceeds from Nigeria’s excess crude oil sales? That obviously would have come in handy here, what were those economic think - tanks, and diplomatic egg-heads doing? Didn’t they know that a token contribution into the Hurricane Katrina fund will gain Nigeria some great mileage, today and forever? That each time donors list are mentioned or read, that Nigeria’s name will be well represented? What is Nigeria doing, when its contemporary – Venezuela is donating 1 million barrels of gasoline, $5 million in cash, water purification plants, canned food and water.

Whatever happened to the phrase, be your bother’s keeper? What if Nigeria
was to suffer one major disaster (yes, it is possible), where does it think that help will
come from? Or does the government not know that Nigeria is also a risk country? Signs abound all over the country; there is the Lagos bar-beach problem, with the constant overflows and flooding of surrounding Victoria Island areas, also there are the different oil producing communities whose resources are being depleted and their environment polluted, classic examples of ecological disasters waiting to happen, so what if something major and serious happens in Nigeria? Will Nigeria cry out to America for assistance? Will America be condemned by Nigeria if it doesn’t respond?

Nigeria obviously has got a lot to learn from Slovenia, yes, Slovenia. The country which used to be regarded as part of the former Yugoslavia was generally regarded by outsiders as backward; they have however, within a short time turned around their image, uniquely positioning themselves as a sought-after destination for investment in Eastern Europe. How did they do it? They listened to the advice of branding consultants and stopped boasting about their achievements – through advertisements and public relations – and started to pursue policies that would demonstrate their success in a more tangible way, so what else did Slovenia do? They began behaving like a wealthy country by giving aid to other parts of the old Yugoslavia, this attracted for them lots of positive, and free media coverage, thus gaining them lots of image mileage which they would never have been prepared to pay for. In nation branding, paid-for media advertisements are just like throwing money away. Simon Anholt, a man who knows more about this area and one of the world’s leading experts in nation branding advises that countries like Nigeria should pursue ‘policy-based branding’ just like Slovenia, according to him, ‘people have strong prejudices about places, the only way you are going to change that is to prove to them that they are wrong. You have to do stuff’ he concludes. And that (doing stuffs) for sure, Nigeria is not doing with these CNN advertisements when it could easily have gotten in on the bandwagon with the Katrina fund. To quote Gary Silverman of the Financial Times, ‘Good works could be good fun and the rest of the world would be spared another tedious round of governmental bragging, countries, states and regions have been doing that forever’.

Hopefully the new man in charge at the Federal Ministry of Information, Mr. Frank Nweke and the appointed brand consultants, Alder will try and do the right thing.

Uche Nworah is a freelance writer and branding scholar, he teaches advertising at the London Metropolitan University. uchenworah@yahoo.com

Robot  # 1 | 14.09.2005 15:11

Link to the article is here

Guest  # 2 | 27.09.2005 10:01

I just read your article on the “Nigeria Katrina Advert” on CNN. I have called it Katrina ad because it has every potential of scarring off investments, tourism etc from Nigeria. What sort of a country it is that cannot shoot an advert unless the president appears in it? Equatorial Guinea and Cuba come to mind. The advert is so embarrassing it wants to make one cry! I have been flirting with the idea that Nigerians in the Diaspora should write a letter and sign, to be published in a national daily and delivered to Aso Rock on why that ad should be pulled immediately. I wonder why it is still running despite the Guardian Editorial and comments like yours. I guess the answer is in your article…too many presidential sycophants! It’s really, really sad, only God knows how may other vital national policies they distort by attempting to flatter the president’s ego . Best regards, Abimbola

ALDER CONSULTING  # 3 | 28.09.2005 13:40

We refer to the article in The Nigerian Village Square on the subject Hurricane Katrina and Nigeria’s Image by Mr. Uche Nworah. We appreciate the objective manner in which he explored the issue of the Heart of Africa Project (a.k.a Nigeria Image Project). The points raised were thought provoking and lucid. But, we feel it is necessary to clearly elaborate on the nature of the project and our role as Image and Brand Consultants. Alder Consulting as a corporate entity has always been passionate about issues that pertain to the Nigerian nationstate. A visit to our website (www.alder-consulting.com) provides information on various initiatives we have embarked on over the years to progress the nation (See http://www.alder-consulting.com/nigeria). Many of these programs were executed at considerable expense to our organization without a view to economic gain or self interest. About seven years ago, we took time off to deliberate on the Nigeria nationstate and craft a strategic progression path for the country. From this retreat, we developed a unique programme to prise Nigeria from the phalanges of a third world economy and take it to its pride of place. Our concept was simple: take Nigeria from the pre-1860 economic model we were operating to the Brand Economy. Our programme was premised on several in-depth studies that we conducted on the wealth of nations around the world (cf. Alder’s publication, Wealth of Modern Nations www.alder-consulting.com/wealth). An outflow was the definitive publication, Nigeria_a Sigh in the Dark, an analysis of Nigeria’s challenges and suggestions on the way forward (www.alder-consulting.com/sigh ). This publication was recorded as an audio book and distributed free to 500 business executives and government functionaries. Our conclusion was that Nigeria could only move forward economically if and only if there was a deliberate attempt by the Government to do the following: 1. Deliberately address our national brand eroders (e.g. advance fee fraud (419) and corruption) and present a true picture of the country 2. Market the nation as a viable brand that people would be willing to identify with and invest in 3. Project our national brand assets (business brands, personality brands, cultural brands, locational brands etc.) and present them as the face of the country as opposed to the Government behemoth the world was used to. The substance of our research and strategic cogitations eventually formed the conceptual framework for what is known today as the Heart of Africa Project. In its most basic form it would serve as a cohesive information programme for Nigeria\'s image management and economic progression and would achieve the 3 key objectives enumerated above. We understand that many nations around the world have brand eroders of their own. (For example, New York is reputed to be the most violent city in the world, Italy was known for crime, the “Mafia” and government corruption, while Taiwan was previously regarded as a producer of 3rd rate imitations). These nations have never sought to deny the negatives. Rather, through sophisticated information substitution, they have promoted the areas in which they are strongest. At the same time, they also worked assiduously to improve their deficiencies. We also acknowledge that in the past, several steps have been taken by Government to address the image issue (some of which were labeled image laundering activities), but we recognized that such activities were never done in a coordinated, strategic or thematic manner. And so they were ad hoc, sporadic, and not self-sustaining. The Heart of Africa Project was accepted by the Federal Ministry of Information & National Orientation (the coordinating Government Ministry for the project). Presentations were subsequently made to the President and the Federal Executive Council and it was adopted as a national project and incorporated as a strategic initiative of the Government’s economic blue print. The process from conception to adoption took nearly 2 years of faith and doggedness. In terms of execution and implementation of the project, a detailed and extensive plan has been developed which is internal and external in scope. The plan comprises a variety of initiatives including Business Diplomacy, Web Strategy, Marketing Communication, Events and Fora. The internal scope entails value reorientation. Plans are already underway to stage multilevel and multicountry phased deployment in a cost effective manner. Government agencies (such as the Police and Customs) will also be engaged and reoriented to clearly intimate them of their roles especially as it concerns the country’s image. It has taken a while, but we believe that to avoid the mistakes of the past and ensure effectiveness, one must proceed with the right blend of critical intelligence and drive. On the issue of the controversial CNN adverts, it should be clear from the quality of Alder Consulting’s presentation, brand standards and uncompromising commitment to the highest ideals, that the adverts could not have been developed by us. We do not wish to atomize the issue by going into the hows and whys, but suffice to say, that it was not our creation and could not be our creation. The CNN project was already in the works before the adoption of the conceptual framework for the Heart of Africa Project. The roll out of the Heart of Africa Project is imminent. And No, we have not compromised our professional integrity. In furtherance of our strategic vision for the nation, we have liaised with the Nigeria High Commission in the UK and are working on a number of initiatives to address critical issues. At our brand seminar (which takes place annually in the UK), we initiated an NGO comprised of credible Nigerian professionals dedicated to redefining Nigeria\'s image. Known as INSODUS, an acronym for The strength INSiDe Of US and the antonym of Exodus, the NGO has undertaken to publish some of the ideas we developed for the Heart of Africa Project. We have produced a variety of postcards for free distribution and download. These postcards were financed by Alder Consulting. We are professionally confident that a thorough implementation of the strategic framework of the Heart of Africa Project will not only reverse our poor perception, but will enhance the economic well being of our fatherland. We remain passionate about progression. Yours Sincerely ALDER CONSULTING Alder Consulting is a strategic image consulting firm. We deal in the currency of ideas. Our operative mission is Progression: of ideas, nationstates and brands.